Mizzima
According to the Human Rights Foundation of Monland (HURFOM) conscription has already started in Karen and Mon states and Tanintharyi Region in southeastern Myanmar.
According to the military junta’s conscription law, military service is mandatory for men aged 18 to 35, women aged 18 to 27, and those who have completed at least two years of service.
The first conscription week will begin after the New Year’s Thingyan water festival in mid-April and will involve 5,000 people per month across the country. The junta also announced that 60,000 men would be called for military service each year.
According to HURFOM, the junta directed the ward, town, and township administrators in Mon State to send in lists of those who have been conscripted by the fourth week of March. Depending on population size, each village or ward administrator needs to select three to ten people for conscription.
The administrators in Thanbyuzayat and Mudon townships in Mon State have already submitted their lists of people to be conscripted.
Within Kyeikmayaw Township in Mon State the ward and village administrators were instructed to select recruits and send the list by 20 March. Similarly, in some of the villages in Chaungzon Township, on Bilugyun Island in Mon State, the administration has sent notices summoning men between 18 and 35 to come to meetings to be recruited in the Burma Army.
A resident of Thanbyuzayat Township said: “Mon youths are no longer in the village. Parents are more concerned. The issue of conscription is quite controversial. In some townships, the administrators carry out censuses.”
The anti-junta breakaway faction of the New Mon State Party, the New Mon State Party (anti-military dictatorship) issued an order telling people not to comply with the conscription demands of the junta. It said that it would take decisive action against district administrations who follow the junta’s orders. Pro-democracy bodies, including the National Consultative Council, the National Unity Government, and the Revolutionary Army, have all announced that they will do the same.
Those who criticize the Conscription Law are also being punished. HURFOM is documenting a case that has been opened against 24-year-old Tun Lin from Mawlamyine under Section 505-A of the Penal Code because he shared a post containing the text of the conscription law and a revolutionary post on a social media page.
According to HURFOM, the man was stopped whilst on his motorcycle at a junta roadblock at the Ah Yar Taw Road and Taung Paw Tan Street intersection in Maung Ngan Ward, Mawlamyine Town. He was arrested after junta soldiers checked his phone and ound a post that read: “Terrorist junta prepares to activate conscription law, summons all citizens.”
HURFOM says that the junta’s conscription law is having a devastating impact and the junta is robbing the youth of their futures by forcing men and women to enlist in the terrorist regime.
